New York — The chair is located at 12 Pell.
Customers come to us through a small barbershop in a narrow alley in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Of course they come to be hurt. But really, they come to enjoy the fun.
They come from New York City, metropolitan areas, and several states to see what they can see on Pell’s dozen active social media accounts. The account features young barbers, most of whom are Asian American, offering advice to teens and men of all ages and races. Humor, wit, confidence, ease and no hesitation whatsoever.
Karho Leung, 34, is that person. A son of Chinatown and one of the founders of 12 Pell, he wanted to start a business that reflected his creativity, long-standing interest in fashion and style, and “a desire to create the world I want to live in.” For permission.”
It’s more of an American idea, right? Do you have a desire to create your own path, find your own path, and have your own voice heard? In some ways, Leung is a case study for the latest incarnation of this. If you look at social media and pop culture, you’ll see that you and other younger generations of Asian Americans are doing the same in all areas: business, politics, content creation, entertainment, and life.
If the space isn’t there yet, they decide to create it.
Looking at America’s past shows that that American reality was not always everyone’s, including previous generations of Asian Americans. The American concept of having the freedom to have your own space? Often this means less space for others.
Previous generations of Asian Americans—some of whom have been here for more than 100 years, while others trace their roots to recent decades—lived in an America where communities of immigrant origin were smaller and essentially constantly viewed as foreign. An America with little mainstream familiarity with the countries from which Asians and Asian Americans trace their ancestry, and without an internet or social media culture that encourages people to define their own lives.
Instead, there was a stereotype that persists to this day. That is, there were stereotypes of otherness, speaking broken English and passivity, sometimes being manipulative or suspicious, and often eating strange and provocative foods. Other iterations have included geeks and nerds who might assume they could ace a math test more easily than they could get a winning point at a game or be trendy enough to provide style guidelines.
But even if those stereotypes still cause harm, they don’t have the same power in a country and an era where many Americans are now eating from plates all over the world. Yoga studios, henna tattoos, temples and cultural festivals are everywhere. A place where Asian American creators have a space to tell their stories. It is a place where the size, diversity, and geography of the Asian American community have increased dramatically over the past two decades, despite being a small portion of the overall total.
These stereotypes don’t affect Leung, who was born in Maine and grew up in Chinatown since childhood, the same way they affected previous generations.
“It’s funny because even though I saw these types of stereotypes and portrayals happening growing up, I never really resonated with or was shocked by the fact that it was something I was against,” he says. “There’s a stigma that exists, but I’ve always driven in my lane.”
Just ask Jeff Yang, 56, a writer who has been documenting Asian American society and culture for decades. When asked whether the cultural space where Leung lives and creates his own culture is similar to Yang’s childhood world, he laughed.
“I grew up in a world where I felt like everything about me was projected onto me by other people,” Yang says. “The stories that were being told were all non-Asian stories about what I could do, what I could be, what I could look like.”
It’s not as if that world doesn’t yet exist. Growing up in the 2000s, Simran Anand, 27, was one of three South Asian families in Reading, Pennsylvania. She says it has to do with previous generations feeling culturally isolated from everyday life when they left home.
But she lacked something. There was a large South Asian community in places like Edison, New Jersey, where her parents visited at least once a quarter. She is at a Sikh gurdwara an hour away where she can learn about her faith. And when she entered college, she could choose a school where she could join a thriving group of South Asian students.
For her, it’s a sensibility that’s neither one nor the other, and it’s a sensibility for BySimran, the jewelry company she started a few years ago to create pieces inspired by South Asian design but tailored to her sensibilities. Even as a young American woman.
“I’m American, but I’m also South Asian. And it doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
Demetri Manabat, 23, agrees. Born and raised in Las Vegas to a Filipino father and Mexican mother, the spoken word artist readily admits that hearing about her parents’ experiences growing up “sounds like a completely different world.”
They did not teach him or his brothers Tagalog, one of the Philippine languages, or Spanish. “Because they grew up in a time when speaking another language was frowned upon. “So they assumed that that kind of awareness would continue throughout my years, but that wasn’t the case.”
“I would always get angry at my parents, saying, ‘Why don’t you teach me the language?’ And only recently have I finally been able to understand, and it was completely different than it is now.”
Alex Beck remembers. The 43-year-old Korean-American artist came of age in a predominantly white suburb outside Philadelphia and currently lives in Los Angeles. “Growing up, I felt like I wasn’t Korean enough or too Korean.” He says he was caught between the standards of his immigrant parents and the American surroundings. “It felt like we were always trying to live up to these standards. “Move the goalposts.”
Today he is intrigued by his 11-year-old daughter. “She loves reading books, and I think it’s really cool that there are so many stories written by Asian American women right now that feature Asian and Asian American girls as main characters,” he says. “I don’t know how it’s going to affect your sense of self, but it’s definitely going to affect you somehow, so I’m really curious to see how she grows up… It’s just normal for her.”
He, Yang and others point to a number of factors that have influenced the lives of Asian Americans over time, including the demographic reality that resulted in more communities across the country, largely due to immigration reform in 1965. Globalization also played a role, and as the world became smaller, we introduced cultures to each other. The role of the Internet and technology cannot be overemphasized.
Of course, in the Asian community in the United States, there have always been people who wanted to be pioneers and trailblazers in the fields of politics, protests, business, entertainment, and the arts. DJ Rekha is one of them. In 1997, Rekha started Basement Bhangra, a monthly party at a Manhattan club that lasted 20 years and introduced many people to the beats and rhythms of Bhangra, a style of music that originated in the Indian subcontinent.
“What I thought was no different from what other people think about creating something,” says Rekha. “You want to do something that feels authentic to you and has an audience that resonates with you.”
Nam June Paik believes that some of what he is seeing in the younger generation is also a natural outpouring of connection to a country that appears different to immigrants and those born here.
“I think if you start with the assumption that you belong to a space, it changes the way you approach things,” he says. “Whether or not the space actually wants you is beside the point. They have an attitude of, ‘Yes, this is my home, this is my country.’ I grew up here.”
And that last statement, “I grew up here,” is the impetus for a new generation of Asian Americans to rise up and claim their own space. Although their assumptions about what is possible for them may be somewhat unsettling for other generations.
“Obviously, older generations are going to have that ‘what’s happening’ moment,” Manabat says. “I think the goal is to have that moment of, ‘This is crazy.’ But it’s also about hoping that everything you hoped would happen.”
Simply put, it’s about creating a world they want to live in. And it doesn’t ask for permission.
